Harper may have won the most seats in Parliament on Tuesday, but our vision of Canada won a large majority of the people -- again. Over 60% of us voted for the opposition, and almost 25% of voters used the strategic voting tool supported by Avaaz! Despite outspending the Liberals 15:1 on vicious American-style attack ads, Harper only increased his percentage of the vote by 2%.

Still, it's going to be a long 4 years. And the stakes are high. Harper has promised to be the PM for all Canadians, and we should give him a chance to show it. But we have every reason to fear that he will try to use his unchecked power to Americanize our country - abolishing public funding for political parties so that private money rules politics, slashing CBC funding and supporting crony-media outlets like SunTV, giving corporations more political power while cutting their taxes, privatizing health care delivery, deregulating guns, growing the tar sands and wrecking international efforts at everything from climate change to poverty reduction. And he'll use his close relationships with Canada's largest media corporations to spin all these things as responsible and reasonable policies.

But sometimes it takes a period of darkness for our brightest lights emerge. A powerful movement of Canadians is already rising to meet the challenge of Harperism. Together we can fight back online, in parliament, in the streets, in the media, in the courts, and in provincial and municipal elections. Canada is entering a time of trial -- let's make this the time that we remembered who we are, and fought for it. Join a live chat of the Avaaz community, and share ideas and inspiration for the road ahead: